Weakening an elder evil

Tyler Dunn said:

So I have this BBEG known as the Frostfell Queen, who is basically a mortal who stole the divine power of a god of undeath which made her an elder evil associated with ice and undeath. I would like players to be able to face off against her at the end of a campaign, but I feel like facing an elder evil at full strength would be a one-way ticket to a TPK. What I need is a way to weaken her enough so that players can face her, perhaps maybe an artifact associated with a fire primordial or the sun god Pelor. Any thoughts?

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Blue said:

Fun question - where will the power go if they fight her? They might have a choice of several ways of weakening her - but the easiest / most effective involves artifacts of the god of undeath she stole the power from, which would return it to her.

Other thing is that since she is mortal, perhaps she needs various boosters / seals in order to contain the power of a god - those could be broken leading up to the climatic showdown.

A variation on that is if she is near the limit her mortal form can contain, perhaps the solution is to help speed her plans because she won't be able to contain it all and will explode if she hasn't had time to acclimate. But have like three or four separate plans and she can contain any two. So at least three need to succeed and near the end she may realize what's happening and be working to stop her plans while the heroes are pushing to finish them.

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JasonZZ said:

I can think of a few things your PCs might do to weaken an elder (or maybe 'eldrich', given that your villain isn't all *that* old) evil before the final battle.

1) The Frostfell Queen might have external power sources. She probably needed a whole lot of help to steal an entire god's power, and the items and places of power that she used probably still exist. Some of them might still feed her power, and destroying or subverting them will probably weaken her. You could have your characters have to find and destroy a ring of stones that she used to trap a portion of the old god's power, for example.

2) Some of the elements of that ritual probably still have a connection to her, even if they don't still directly feed her power. Your heroes might use them to get past her defenses or to blunt and/or weaken her attacks. For example, the knife she used to sacrifice the old god's avatar (or high priest, or whatever) would probably cut right through whatever protections she has, or the vestments from that old ritual might be enchanted to protect against the power she stole so she could survive the ritual to steal it in the first place.

3) Turnabout is fair play. Your PCs, or their allies (or even "allies" of convenience) could steal some or all of her power in turn, maybe even using the items from 1) and 2) for extra fun. You know Orcus will want a piece of her; it's an open question whether the PCs can trust him long enough to weaken her. Or maybe some fragment of the old god exists and wants payback.

4) Your new evil has made foes, not all of whom are greedy rivals or victims. This would be your "assistance of Pelor" would come into play. An epic quest to recruit Pelor directly, maybe having to take on some of his burdens to free him up to help would be interesting.

5) There might also be natural phenomena and/or pre-existing items that are harmful to her because they embody principles that oppose her. Imagine luring her into a summer-aligned region of the Feywild, for example, for a double dose of "life" and "summer" to oppose her undeath and winter, for example.

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Tyler Dunn said:

I like 2, 4, and 5 the best. I might give the players a chance to have Pelor bless one of their weapons to create an artifact with power over life and sun, after proving themselves to him of course. Then they could find that one of her allies kept the knife she used to kill the gods' high priests for themselves, which could provide the players protection against the Frostfell Queens power. How does that sound?

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